Academia (working title, subject to change).

[DanaC]

Ok. I don't know why, but reading poetry always makes me want to write it. Something about the rhythm of another writer sets me off with rhythms of my own.

This is very much a first draft. It really isnt what i'm supposed to be doing...as indeed the subject of the poem suggests...but it's been floating round my head all morning. so here we go. I don't like the title, I'll be changing that. But I had Henry's questions rumbling about in my mind as well. Made me think about hwat it is I was looking for when I went to uni. And the fact that I am nearing the end of that stage.

Anyway: here 'tis. Possibly more of a prose poem than verse. Comments and suggestions as always welcome.


Academia

There’s a break in the clouds, and a stray shaft of sunlight is bouncing off railings and sweetening the pathways. And my feet find motion, without my attention, I’m drawn by momentum and visions of wisdom. This was the whole of it. This was the way of it. Nine year old eyes driven wild by the dream of it. All other pathways, all other journeys, merely apprenticeship; all roads the way to it.

A cloudless blue sky and my mind is all over, three years have passed swiftly and left me reflecting. The garden entices with rainbows of colour, that tap at my window and catch my attention. A radio throws out effusions of voices and swift passing feet on their Saturday wanderings, spark me a spark of envy and greed; I would stretch out my limbs and run into the street.

But this is just silliness, this is the worst of me. Journeys embarked on, deserve their completion; and I with my nine year old eyes looking on, revisit my dreams with one eye on the time, and with characteristically random delight, I retrieve what I lost and find all is in place. When the sky’s blue is stolen by rainclouds on missions, I’m lost in my journey and blind to the changes.

And all is now peaceful in my little corner; the laptop is humming with busy disorder. The weather is unknown, the sky is no colour, and I have a mission that holds me with wonder. Words on a page, building structures and vistas, of otherness so tantalisingly close to us; wickedly weaving the words of old soldiers, and outspoken wives with their cautious collusion.

This is the whole of it. This is the way of it. The dreams that have brought me have stayed in the play of it. Now comes the hard part; the steadfast, the handclasp, the grip on the edges of all that I’ve worked for. And somehow the weight of it, hasn’t collapsed on me, hasn’t outweighed me and plunged me to failure...if I can just keep holding on.